Wednesday, September 19, 2007

It would be easy enough to trawl the internet and find reviewers who agree with the basic ideas in the book. Should HR then, for the sake of ‘balance’, say that "Reviewers Accept ‘The Israel Lobby’"? We all know what the likelihood of that is.

Though it is funny to see HR, the promoter of the world-wide anti-Israel media conspiracy, pointing to the same media to support its’ views of this book.

This is the HR Law of Media; agree with us and you are purveyors of the truth, disagree and you are anti-Israeli hacks peddling hatred and lies.

"Will a UN "anti-racism" conference become another anti-Semitic and anti-Israel parley?"

Ho hum. Next.

“JEWISH YOUTHS = MUSLIM TERRORISTS”

the New Statesman has falsely equated Jewish teens volunteering on IDF programs and Muslim youths taking part in terrorist training camps

Well, it has drawn attention to the parallels. And quite rightly. Here is the article, it’s well worth a read.

HR are outraged (as usual) that anyone could question why British teenager who are Jewish would head off to Israel to do an IDF camp, dressing in fatigues and learning to shoot military rifles. Really, what could be more natural?

Totally harmless say HR, it's

designed to foster an understanding of the IDF, its role in Israeli society and to connect with Israelis doing their compulsory army service.

The New Statesman article finishes with this question,

If these were British Muslim 19 year-olds firing machine guns and running assault courses in Pakistan or Yemen, would we not have them all arrested at the airport?

Which of course HR finds “shocking”. Poor darlings.

While HR are happy pretending, for dramatic effect, that the article is saying “Jewish youths = Muslim terrorists”, that wasn’t the point being made (and it goes without saying, for HR at least, that Muslim kids at a Hamas camp are automatically ‘terrorists’). Of course there are some differences between the situations. The kids going to the camps in Gaza are kids from Gaza, not the US or Britain. A better question to end the article might have been to speculate the reaction to 18 yr old British Muslim youth going to Lebanon to train with the Lebanese army, just to “foster an understanding of the Lebanese army”, of course. What could be more natural?

The article really needs to be placed in some perspective (aside from HR’s shrill hysterics). And this is it – Child Recruitment in Israel .

Read it, and you’ll see that the New Statesman article is just a small piece of the overall picture, and a rather disturbing one at that.